


Under Your Spell

by ChaotiCookie



Series: Drabbles [2]
Category: Drive (2011), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, F/M, No Jedi, No Space Magic, no Sith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27188302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaotiCookie/pseuds/ChaotiCookie
Summary: Little thing I did for my OC fromStar Wars: Autonomousand Maul
Relationships: Darth Maul/Original Character(s), Darth Maul/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Drabbles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984687
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Under Your Spell

The sky outside the bedroom window was an array of purple and orange clouds, a sure sign of the apartment’s resident needing to pick up her pace.

Durmónia tied her thick head of black curls on top her head, unable to pull back the stray strands over her forehead. She checked her dark features in the bathroom mirror and noted the black circles forming under her eyes. For a moment she considered hiding her weariness with some layers of make-up but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of being late.

Outside the room was the chattering voices of the holonews coming from a hologram displayed before a theelin teen in a hoverchair. He stared on without interest in what was being said, his thoughts far away from the drab apartment.

“Kyp,” Durmónia returned him to the present. “Want me to bring you something back from the restaurant?”

He angled his hoverchair to face her better, his blue eyes blinking slowly with a hardship no one his age should be allowed to carry.

“No. I’m okay. Betts is making something for me right now.”

Coming around the kitchen was a service droid on a single wheel holding a tall cup that gave off a whiff of fruit juices Durmónia was skeptical about.

“Where did you get those ingredients from?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” was its terse response before holding the smoothie’s straw to Kyp’s mouth.

With no time to argue, she gathered a double-breasted jacket with faded stains off a chair and slung a bag over her shoulder.

“Okay. I gotta go,” she pressed a kiss to Kyp’s lavender forehead then smacked Betts’ metal head. “We’re having a talk about stealing when I get back.”

Checking the chronometer, she cursed under her breath and sped down the hall of doors and glowing numbers to the lift at the end of it. The seconds it took to reach the garage floor, irritation sparking her nerves when it halted for other residents, was endless. At its final stop, she slivered her way out the moment the door spun open and sped walked to her landspeeder, passing the silent neighbor who was making their way to the lift.

His crown of ivory horns curved out prominently against the crimson skin where black tattoos marked every section of his bare skull, face, and neck. She glanced his way a moment and caught drops of golden amber peeking at her as well.

A hand smacked a panel with buttons bent and faded from the number of times it had been pressed for an order ready at the window. Within the steam of food in the clamorous kitchen, a balosar female sigh in aggravation.

“Hey!” she pressed the panel several more times. “Get the kriffing food! Stupid droid…”

“Give them a second,” Durmónia came around and plated sizzling, charred meat. “Their processors are as old as some of the freeze packages of food still packed in the storeroom.”

“You know you can do better than work in some backwater diner, right?” the balosar rubbed one of her antennaepalps with discomfort from the oil spitting at them. “Only reason why this place is still open is because of you.”

“Yeah, well,” Durmónia finished sautéing a pan of multicolored vegetables and distributed them on several plates, “not easy to find work when you have an extensive criminal record.”

“Thanks to that we got less shootouts and bar fights in here.”

Durmónia broke into a laugh, “Is that the real reason why I’m being kept here?”

“Secret’s out.”

“And here I thought it was because of my charming personality.”

The balosar raised her brows, “Charming isn’t quite the word I would use to describe you.”

The order she had placed on the window was still being warmed under the heat-panel and slammed the panel prompter again.

“Droid!”

“I got it.”

Durmónia checked for the table number on the console and took the plate to the customer who had their blue hands patiently folded over their face. He moved aside his wide-brimmed hat to make space for the meal.

“Sorry, Bane,” she met the striking, red gaze meant to keep bystanders at bay. “It’s on the house.”

He waved a hand of indifference and spoke with grains in his throat and the support of his breathing tubes, “I’ll pay what needs to be paid.”

Unconvinced, she grinned at a proposition, “Ale on the house?”

“Two,” he agreed easily.

Durmónia squinted, “You didn’t sabotage our droid did you?”

“What gave you that idea?” he hid a coy smirk by taking a bite into his meal.

“I’m only allowing it this one as a thank you for taking your bounty outside the restaurant and not shooting up the place from the other day.”

“Much obliged, ma’am.”

Past the transparent pane that extended across the diner’s front face, a speeder bike parked alongside the other vehicles and a male with a horned helmet and a black, leather jacket swung off the seat.

“Is it our metal-legged regular?” Cad Bane observed. “What does the fellow order here anyway? Don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat.”

Durmónia followed the masked male, the neon lights of the diner’s sign reflecting off the visor.

“Tea.”

Bane hummed with mild interest and remained silent when the tattooed with crimson skin removed his helmet and sat himself down.

“He’s a strange one.”

“You’re one to talk,” she scoffed. “You order the same thing every week.”

“He wears the same jacket every night he comes here,” he explained. “New markings on it each time. New bruises. Carries no blaster. And he’s no bounty hunter. I would know.”

“That’s quite a study. You thinking of asking him on a date?”

He released a grainy growl, “Get me my ale. _Two_ of them.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Her eyes followed a droid hovering to the zabrak’s table and taking its order before returning to the kitchen where there was a single order on the console’s display.

“Same thing?” the balosar came up behind her.

“Same thing,” Durmónia confirmed.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Three in the morning and her feet hurt from being on them all day without taking a single break, but her speeder decided to steam and made strange noises when she started it. She opened its hood and was engulfed with black fumes she waved and coughed at then stared at the coils, cylinders, and wires as if they were her greatest enemy.

“Okay,” she calmed herself and started to reach for the first thing Kyp had taught her from memory. But she yelped in pain at her burning fingers.

“Kriff!”

In the corner of her eye was a shadow looming beside her and on impulse slid her foot forward and brought a fist into an undercut that was stopped with ease by a leather bound hand.

Amber eyes gleamed with mild amusement at her hand in his, then fell away to the somber exterior she always saw on him in the sparse seconds of their silent interactions.

“Sorry!” she returned her hand. “Didn’t know—didn’t hear you. You’re really quiet.”

Durmónia cleared the nerves building in her throat at the proximity and catching the details of his tattoos for the first time; how well the designs accentuated his features.

“Do you require assistance?” his voice rumbled smoothly from his chest.

“Ah,” she rubbed her bare arm, the uniform discarded long ago to release the kitchen’s heat. “A bit. Not good with machines. They have a vendetta set out against me.”

“Let me take a look.”

“Oh, no. You don’t have to,” she held her hands up. “It’s really late and I can take the train home.”

Halfway through her protests he maneuvered his way to the speeder and dug his hands into the engine.

Durmónia scratched her head in thought, considering several times to push him out of the way and be more direct about it being alright to take the train. However, she lost herself in his tinkering, the knuckles moving under the fabric of his gloves in the low light of the neon sign which also reflected a helix ring in his ear.

“You need more light?”

“No. Almost finished.”

“That was fast.”

“A temporary fix to get you home. You will need to have it looked at.”

“I know someone who’s pretty savvy with this stuff. Keeps telling me to just get a new one.”

“It is,” he faded as he straightened himself up, “not a good speeder.”

“The model?”

“This one specifically.”

“No need to be so harsh,” she patted the vehicle. “It’s been through some tough times.”

“Its time has ended.”

Durmónia barked a laugh, “Alright. Well…” _What am I thinking?_ “To thank you for your troubles would you like to come over for tea? I have your favorite kind.”

He paused halfway to shutting the hood.

“I mean—,” spurts of panic elevated her heart rate and backtracked. “I mean, maybe not now. It’s super late and you probably have other things to do and I take stuff from the diner all the time, so I have a bunch of other stuff at home, not just that tea specifically. Plus, I don’t live alone and—”

“Now is fine,” he closed the lid closed then turned from her being able to see his face. “I will see you there.”

It wasn’t until he reached the speeder bike and placed on his helmet did Durmónia stumble into the driver’s seat and whirred the speeder’s repulsorlift to life.

The lift’s glowpanels flickered when they raised to their floor.

Durmónia softly chewed on her lower lip, taking in the disciplined posture of the being beside her who also stared intently ahead of them.

“I’m Móni.”

His rigid form softened, the shoulders dipping in just the slightest, and showed her a bit more than his profile.

“Maul.”

Steaming black liquid poured through a strainer and into a cup, which was then set on the kitchen’s island that divided the living area. Durmónia did her best to not stare at the black diamonds on his knuckles when he grasped the beverage in his hands.

He didn’t take a seat, instead standing while he took a sip.

“How long you been on Coruscant?” she leaned against the sink, steadying the quake in her legs.

“Several years.”

“So, only relatively new here in the building.”

“Yes,” his attention was taken away to subtle movements behind a closed room. “You live with a boy.”

She nodded to Kyp’s room, “Yeah, he’s been with me a year before you moved in.”

“Related?”

“Uh,” Durmónia shifted her weight with discomfort and decided to start cleaning the single cup Kyp drank his smoothie out of before she left. “No. I’m a friend of his father who’s in prison. Taking him in until he gets out…”

The cup striking the counter hit her ears louder than the running water, and from over her shoulder caught a scowl pouring into his cup. Before he could open his mouth to speak his apologies, she dropped the dishes and dried her hands on her pants.

“What do you do?”

This time, it seemed it was her turn asking the wrong questions when he searched for an answer to give off to the side.

“I am a contractor for a businessman,” he chose his words carefully.

“Oh,” Durmónia felt she had broached a taboo subject which pushed her curiosity. “What kind?”

Maul remained unmoving, a shadow of anger casting over his features; hardening his appearance into something feral.

Cad Bane’s warning echoed in her head, inciting her to scan the leather jacket that was frayed at the ends and had darkened splotches of carbon scoring. There was also a decolorization on his cheek bone she recognized from experience what the cause was.

He downed the remainder of the tea and gently set it aside.

“The kind that provides my services to those in need of it,” the helmet slid off the counter and under his arm. “You should rest.”

Before Durmónia could try to act like a good host, the area littered with articles of clothing she really should have put away when she woke that morning, Maul had his finger to the door panel.

“Thank you for the drink.”

“Not a problem,” Maul was making his way out, his brow ridge furrowed in deep concern. “See you at the diner again?”

He stopped just past the doorframe and faced her.

Their similar height forced them to look directly at the other, a spark igniting in between the distance.

How long had she watched the unnamed zabrak? From the moment he moved-in to his constant appearance at the diner. Never eating, only taking the same order of tea while staring past the customers and the muggy moisture that fogged Coruscant’s lower levels. Always deep in his world, never been seen with another lifeform or held any interactions with another, except when she caught his stray glances into the kitchens.

But now the mysterious rider had a name to the face, and he had become a reality she could possibly touch and not unattainable. And when the lines of his discomfort smoothed away, she melted into the kindness that rose on the corner of his lips.

“Yes.”

She watched him off, several doors down the hall until he reached his apartment.

“Who was that?”

Durmónia jumped at Kyp hovering close behind her.

“A friend,” she recovered from the scare then gathered her clothes from the couch and chairs.

“That’s good.”

She faced the teen with a pile in her arms, “Good?”

“Yeah,” he maneuvered the hoverchair to the couch and motioned his eyes to the space behind it. “You haven’t hung out with anyone since I’ve been here.”

“That’s…,” a bra was recovered she thought had been lost forever. “It has been a while.”

“Shouldn’t stop your social life on my account. Also, if you’re worried about how I feel about it because of Dad, don’t be. I know you two haven’t really been together for some time now.”

Durmónia spun on her heel, “Alright. What do you want?”

Kyp hovered back to his room, hiding his victory, “I get to bring a friend over too.”

“I never said you couldn’t bring him over.”

“Yeah, but,” he gave a dramatic sigh, “didn’t want to make you feel like a third wheel.”

“How considerate of you. Little monkey lizard,” she paused at pulling out a pair of shorts from under the couch. “Wait a second. Maul isn’t that kind of friend.”

“Alright,” Kyp didn’t sound convinced. “Tell me that when you’re not actually cleaning the apartment you haven’t touched in months.”

She clicked her tongue at him and carried her bundle to her room, “Go to bed. And tell Betts I haven’t forgotten her recent escapades.”

“Night, Móni,” he chuckled.

Durmónia collapsed on her bed, breathing in the rush still thrumming in her veins from the encounter and hugged a pillow to bury her grin into.

Her grip loosened when she recounted Maul’s possible occupation, though. How it could affect her life. Kyp’s life. If it was something that should be pursued.

She undid her hair and massaged the scalp under the thick mass of curls from the main dilemma at hand. How she had been completely trapped under his spell.


End file.
